By Adam Turteltaub
adam.turteltaub@corporatecompliance.org

Your IT department needs some code written for the website, or maybe for handling an inventory management issue. So, they go online to one of the sites for finding coding talent, and hire a firm. Believe it or not, there’s a chance that the person writing the code could be North Korean, and that could put your organization at substantial risk, both in legal and reputational terms.

Mark Allenbaugh is a trade consultant for companies doing business in China, and he warns that North Korean programmers living in China may be doing coding for your company. Either your IT manager doesn’t realize that the person is North Korean, or a company your firm hires in, for example, Germany, subcontracts the work out to Chinese firm, which uses North Korean workers.

It’s a scary prospect, but there is some good news: North Korean programmers often leave a digital fingerprint.

Listen in to learn more about this risk and what you should do to avoid it.